Friday, October 21, 2011

Theodericus Croata times three

While looking at Volker Leppin's Antichrist und Jüngster Tag, I noticed his reference to a 1612 edition that combined Johann Carion's hidden prophecy and "Dietrich von Zengg," a prophecy found in the mid-fifteenth century in manuscript and then in eleven editions between 1503 and 1542. In 1546, Hans Guldenmund printed Carion and Zengg together in Nuremberg. I wasn't aware of the seventeenth-century edition until I saw Leppin's note, and a quick look at VD16/17 finds two more editions (VD17 1:063153A, 7:707451Q, and VD17 23:327852S). At first glance, it looks like Balthasar Hoffmann of Darmstadt reprinted Guldenmund's edition sixty-six years later, with another edition in 1619 and an anonymous edition following in 1621.

As a prophecy, "Dietrich von Zengg" is a mess, with no obvious structure or historical reference. Hopefully Courtney Kneupper's dissertation will be out soon, as figuring out "Dietrich von Zengg" is one of the projects she was working on. One version of "Wilhelm Friess" includes citations from "Dietrich von Zengg," so it's not a problem I can simply ignore.

The prophecy is also a bibliographic mess. The author's name is all over the place, both in the secondary literature and in the editions themselves. On the title pages, you find Dietrich von "Zeng in Kravaten," von "Zeng in Granaten," "Dieterich bischoff zu Zug in Krocon," and two editions that don't name the author at all. In GW/ISTC and VD16/17, the authors are listed variously as "Theodoricus Croata," "Bruder Dietrich," "Theodoricus [Monachus]," "Theodoricus [Epternacensis]," and "Dietrich [von Zengg]," and the two editions without named authors aren't connect to the rest at all.

1 comment:

  1. Nice blog. For Zengg the best is IMHO a list I have compiled at
    http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Dietrich_von_Zengg

    I will add a XVIth century manuscript I have found in the future.

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